


just like me they long to be

by sparklespiff



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Oblivious Heartbreaker Katsuki Yuuri, Public Nudity, Silly, Yurio's Crush on Yuuri, beautiful Katsuki Yuuri, drunken nudity, stupid but well-meaning lies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-18
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2019-02-03 22:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12757473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparklespiff/pseuds/sparklespiff
Summary: "Haven't you noticed that Yuuri gets everything he wants?""Everything that's in somebody else's power to give him," Mari says, before Victor can bring up last year's GPF. "He's notmagic,just pretty.""But it'slikemagic. My theory is that it's because he'ssneakybeautiful, so you're not expecting it, and then, under all that stuff, whoa! Gorgeous. And it's too late to save yourself.""Stuff?" Victor keeps smiling but makes his voice cold, the way he does when reporters overstep. His Yuuri doesn't havestuff.Everything about him is beautiful.or:Yuuri lives in a Beautiful Person Bubble. It's Victor's responsibility to make sure he never finds out.





	just like me they long to be

**Author's Note:**

  * For [callmecookie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmecookie/gifts).



> For my dear friend [callmecookie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/callmecookie), who is basically magic at getting me to write things.
> 
> This is a very silly fic about Yuuri living in a Beautiful Person Bubble and not realizing it. It's inspired by a whole bunch of tumblr posts about oblivious beautiful Katsuki Yuuri, and that "I saw a man so beautiful I started crying" thing, and a little bit that 30 Rock episode "The Bubble" but without Yuuri being really stupid or bad at skating.
> 
> Title is taken from the song "(They Long to Be) Close to You".
> 
> Anyway, enjoy.

Victor finds out at their engagement party. Well, Victor considers it an engagement party. Their invitations consisted of Yuuri drunkenly yelling in the middle of the Worlds banquet, "Hey, everybody! Everybody! I won! I beat _everybody_ and now Victor is going to marry me and you all have to come to the party because I won! Victorrrr, I beat you! At skating! Kiss my gold medal again!"

Really, the fact that everyone showed up to the party anyway should have clued Victor in.

Victor, of course, considers the fact that his Yuuri is a spectacularly ungracious winner to be charming and a little sexy, but Victor is in love with him. Nobody else in this room has that excuse. (Except maybe Yurio, who somehow thinks his crush is a secret. Adorable.)

So Victor should have figured it out sooner, but it's not until Mari and Phichit corner him together that he learns about it.

"Victor Nikiforov," Phichit says, putting his hands on Victor's shoulders, "we have something very important to tell you about Yuuri."

 _Everything_ anyone tells Victor about Yuuri is important, but it seems like Phichit has a whole speech ready, so Victor doesn't correct him.

"Yuuri is really beautiful," Phichit says.

"The most beautiful!" Victor agrees.

"Yes," Phichit says, "but like, so beautiful things get weird around him? He, like, warps reality—"

"There's no need to be so dramatic," Mari says _to a figure skater,_ and it blows Victor's mind all over again how little Yuuri's family understands about his sport. "My brother lives in a Beautiful Person Bubble."

Victor blinks. "A beautiful... person... bubble?"

Phichit nods. "Haven't you noticed that Yuuri gets everything he wants?"

"Everything that's in somebody else's power to give him," Mari says, before Victor can bring up last year's GPF. "He's not _magic,_ just pretty."

"But it's _like_ magic. My theory is that it's because he's _sneaky_ beautiful, so you're not expecting it, and then, under all that stuff, whoa! Gorgeous. And it's too late to save yourself."

"Stuff?" Victor keeps smiling but makes his voice cold, the way he does when reporters overstep. His Yuuri doesn't have _stuff._ Everything about him is beautiful.

"Like, his glasses—"

"They're adorable!" Victor counters.

"—and his messy hair—"

"So sexy!"

"—and his terrible fashion sense!"

Victor has no argument to make to that. Victor often gets the urge to burn all of Yuuri's clothing, and not even because it would mean Yuuri were naked. "I still don't see what you mean about this bubble, though."

"Victor," Mari says, "you quit skating at the peak of your career to fly to a country where you don't speak the language to coach a skater who bombed nationals."

"That was the best decision I ever made," Victor says, instead of starting a discussion on the things he loves about Yuuri's skating. This is his engagement party, after all, and he wants to get back to his fiance before it ends. "Coaching Yuuri saved my life."

"And that's wonderful," Phichit says. "Yeah, obviously we can't use _you_ as an example to you, but— Oh! Yuri Plisetsky! Until this year, have you ever known him to help anybody with anything? I heard last year he pushed some children down the stairs at Junior Worlds!"

Victor barely keeps himself from laughing. "That... didn't happen." As far as Victor knows, the only incident at last year's Junior Worlds involved Yurio being his usual delightful self to a few older junior skaters, who took offense and had to be dragged off by their coaches before it got physical.

"Still! The point stands! He's notoriously kind of awful, and he helped Yuuri with his quad Salchow!"

"He was working on understanding agape at the time," Victor says. That, and his enormous crush on Victor's fiance, but Victor isn't going to spill Yuri's secret to _Phichit Chulanont._ He's not a monster.

"Okay, how about this— he never paid for a single meal the entire time we lived in Detroit!"

Mari laughs. "If he hadn't grown up in an onsen, I'm not sure he'd know you were supposed to pay for food in a restaurant. Which reminds me— Yuuri doesn't know how to cook."

"That's... fine?"

"Since we're passing the Bubble responsibility to you, I figured I'd let you know you're going to be responsible for keeping him fed now too."

"Seriously, I love him, but he _really_ can't cook. I watched him eat dry instant ramen once," Phichit says. "And he still looked good doing it?"

"Wait," Victor says. "What's the Bubble responsibility?"

"People will just walk up to him and _give him things,_ Victor." Phichit waves his hands in the air. "One time this girl just gave him money in the street! Actual dollars right out of her purse! And he was like, 'Do I look homeless today, Phichit?' and I had to be like, 'Well, maybe a little?'"

Victor narrows his eyes. "You _lied_ to him?"

"Yes." Phichit strikes a pose— one hand on his hip and the other pointing at Victor. "And now it's _your_ responsibility to!"

"What?" Victor crosses his arms. "If he asks me something, I'm telling him the truth. Especially about that! Yuuri should always know how lovely he is!"

 _"Absolutely not, Nikiforov,"_ Mari says, jabbing Victor in the chest with her finger. "You _know_ what Yuuri's like."

"He's just started to have confidence in his skating," Phichit says, quietly and quickly. "What do you think will happen if he finds out about this? Do you really think he won't start worrying that maybe his scores have been inflated because of it? Do you really want him to start doubting the gold medal that means you're getting married?"

They... might have a point there.

Mari must realize he agrees, because she nods and says, "Good. Now pretend we were giving you the shovel talk."

"You already gave me a shovel talk," Victor says. "Separately. And Yuuri knows that, because he told me he yelled at you both."

"Exactly," Mari says. "As an older sister, I'm basically obligated to do it again now."

Victor raises an eyebrow at Phichit, who shrugs.

"I am a man of many shovels," Phichit says.

Victor speaks three languages fluently, and is making good progress on a fourth. He is not a stupid man. "I... don't think I understand what that means as a threat."

Phichit smiles at him. "Let's hope you never do. Now smile for a selfie!"

When Victor sees it on instagram later, it's captioned _my BFF's engagement party!!! I love @v-nikiforov for making @katsukiyuri so happy #betterkeepitup #orelse #justfuturebestmanthings._

*

The thing is, Victor doesn't really _believe_ them until a few weeks into Yuuri living with him in St. Petersburg. 

_Does Yuuri get ice time whenever he wants wherever he is?_ Victor texts Phichit.

Phichit's response is: laughing crying emoji, laughing crying emoji, sparkle emoji, heart-with-an-arrow-through-it emoji, sparkle emoji, nail painting emoji. Victor decides to interpret that as a yes.

Yuuri's constant rink access made sense in Hasetsu— the Ice Castle is an old rink in a small town and Yuuri is the hometown hero and best friends with the rink managers.

But this is St. Petersburg, and even Victor hadn't been able to skate at the Sports Champions Club in the middle of the night.

Victor isn't quite sure how it happened, just that one night Yuuri was fidgety all through dinner. When Victor fell asleep, Yuuri was still sitting up against the pillows playing some game on his DS. The next morning he walked into the rink manager's office and walked out with a set of keys.

The rink manager is a crotchety old man who seems to regard everyone who practices at the rink as a blight on his existence. He speaks aggressively little English, and Yuuri's Russian language skills currently consist of pointing at things and saying _pozhaluysta._

When Victor asked Yuuri how he managed it, Yuuri just said that Sergei was really nice.

So now if Yuuri feels the need to skate figures at midnight, he goes to the rink and uses his keys to get in. Victor goes with him, to watch over him, and if sometimes Victor gets on the ice with him, well. Yuuri's skating always calls out to him, and no part of Victor will ever want to say no.

*

Somehow, Yurio finds out that Yuuri can't cook and starts bringing lunch for him to the rink. He arranges it in bento boxes, with the food made to look like frowny faces or spelling out mean messages, which is adorable and obviously cannot be allowed to stand. So one day, when Yuuri is practicing jumps at one side of the rink, Victor skates over to Yuri at the other side to assert his rights as fiance and say that _he_ will be cooking for his future husband, thank you very much, or at least harangue Yurio into bringing lunch for Victor, too.

"People keep saying I'm the next Victor Nikiforov," Yurio says, before Victor has a chance to open his mouth. He leans back against the boards and crosses his arms and glares at Victor with his chin tilted up. "I mean, they've _been_ saying it, but ever since you came back nobody will shut up about it."

"I know you hate it," Victor says, "but all of us here know that you're your own person. Anyway, it won't be for long."

Victor hasn't announced it yet, but everyone he cares about knows this season is his last. 

Yuuri was the first person he told, and the one he'd been most nervous about. They were cuddling in bed, nighttime routine done, holding each other and relaxing before sleep.

He asked Yuuri to sit up for him, and then scooted over on top of the covers so that he was sitting across from Yuuri, so that Victor could take both of Yuuri's hands in his and look into his eyes.

Yuuri smiled at him. "What's going on, my Victor?" He was always _my Victor_ in bed. Belonging, cherished, possessed. Victor loved it.

If Yuuri didn't want him after this, Victor didn't know what he'd do. But Yuuri loved him, and Victor trusted him. "I'm retiring after this season. I won't say anything until after the Olympics. I don't want to make it about me. I know my fans will want a chance to say goodbye, so I'll announce it before Worlds."

Then he waited for what Yuuri had to say.

"Are you okay?"

Victor hadn't stopped looking at him the entire time, but now he looked _more._ His Yuuri was always surprising him. "What?"

Yuuri bit his lip, and Victor wanted desperately to kiss the spot his teeth were indenting. "If it were me," Yuuri said, after another moment of Victor waiting him out, "if I were the one retiring, I'd be sad. I want to help you if you're sad."

"Oh, Yuuri," Victor said, "my Yuuri," and gave into the impulse, kissed Yuuri's mouth one, two, three times. "I have loved skating. I've loved it. And the ice gave me _you,_ and for that I will always be grateful, but I'm tired. I've done what I wanted to do. I've given skating enough of myself. I'm just—"

Victor sighed, and looked down at their hands. Yuuri didn't push him, just sat there patiently until Victor finally said, "I'm just worried you aren't going to love a Victor who doesn't skate."

Yuuri laughed, and Victor lifted his gaze to see the bright flash of Yuuri's full smile. "Are you planning on coaching me from off the ice?"

Victor shook his head.

Yuuri's eyes were shining like Victor was the thing he'd been looking for, like Victor was the best thing he'd ever found.

"How many times do I have to say it?" Yuuri let go of Victor's hands to lift his own to Victor's face. Yuuri's hands were warm on Victor's cheeks. "I love the Victor who is Victor. That's all you have to be for me to love you."

So now, at the rink, Victor spends his time figuring out how to say goodbye and thank you in a love song.

But right this second, Victor is dealing with Yurio, who shrugs like the idea of being compared to Victor suddenly doesn't disturb him at all. "I don't know," Yurio says, turning his head. Victor turns too and sees what he sees: Yuuri, spinning, like something out of a dream. "I could be you."

 _What,_ Victor's mind screeches. _WHAT._

"The younger, better version, obviously," Yurio adds.

"Yuriooo!" Yuuri calls, waving, before Victor can figure out what to say to that. "Can you help me learn to tano the quad Salchow?"

"Tano jumps are _my thing,"_ Yurio grumbles. "Like hell I'm going to teach you to do _my thing!"_

Then he speeds across the rink to teach Yuuri to do his thing.

"You're okay with this?" Victor asks Yakov, watching Yuri demonstrate jump after jump.

The stone that makes up Yakov's face is apparently still capable of shifting into a smile. "Teaching the jump will only solidify his technique. I'm more than okay with it. You should have brought that boy here sooner."

 _What,_ goes Victor's brain, for the second time in as many minutes. _Whaaaaaaat._

*

All of those things have to do with skating, though. They're impressive, yes, but Victor understands how easy it is to fall in love with a skating Yuuri.

The next time something happens, they're not anywhere near the ice at all. 

They're sitting in a cafe, by a window, and Victor sees a man stop in the middle of the sidewalk, gape at Yuuri, and run into the flower shop across the street. The man emerges from the shop with a giant bouquet of multicolored roses, runs back across the street with them, heedless of traffic, walks into the cafe, and presents them to Yuuri.

"For you," he says in Russian. "You are so beautiful. Seeing you has made me grateful to be alive. Thank you for existing."

Then he leaves.

"Oh, no," Yuuri says. He's holding the flowers in his lap, and Victor can barely see his eyes over them. "It's happening again. Do I look sad or tired? Why did that man give me pity flowers?"

"Of course not!" Victor says. "You look lovely as always, sunbeam." _Pity flowers? Again?_ Victor could almost murder Phichit for this, except that this is probably a conclusion Yuuri came to on his own, and also Phichit would definitely kill Victor first.

Then Yuuri frowns, and Victor's brain fills with static. Static, and Phichit's voice, over and over: _Do you really want him to start doubting the gold medal that means you're getting married?_

Yuuri lies to himself all the time. Just the other day, Victor watched him mutter to himself, "You're a dime-a-dozen skater, Katsuki Yuuri," before jumping and landing his first quad Lutz. Yuuri high-fived every skater on the ice after that, and then, with Victor filming, landed the jump again.

Victor sent the video to Chris, along with the message, _He's coming for you._

 _god, I wish. unffff,_ Chris sent back, along with an eggplant emoji, three splash emoji, and a snowflake emoji.

So lies can help Yuuri. They make Yuuri happy. This is something Victor can do for him.

"It's because of me," Victor says. "I'm a national hero, and this city is my home. He was welcoming you as my future husband. This sort of thing will happen occasionally. You know how it is."

Yuuri blinks at him and then nods, like that makes perfect sense. Victor slides his sunglasses back on, like a douchebag, like Jean Jacket or whatever his name is, and very carefully does not cringe.

 _MARI-NEECHAN,_ Victor texts later, _WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME!?!!_

 _aaaaaaa it's the hero of Russia,_ she replies, _kyaaaaa (swoon) (swoon)_

*

It's very stressful, lying to his beautiful Yuuri about why people are being nice to him, so when their rinkmates invite them out for drinks, Victor makes his cutest face at Yuuri until Yuuri agrees to go. It's still the offseason, after all, and if they can't drink now, when can they?

They start drinking at the restaurant, and then they move to a bar. A few drinks in, Yuuri starts talking about cutting himself off because he doesn't want to gain weight, and Mila laughs.

"That's why we're drinking vodka," she says. "Fewer calories than wine!"

"Oh." Yuuri smiles, a small amused thing. His cheeks are flushed. He's so lovely. "I thought we were drinking vodka because we're in Russia."

"That too," Georgi says, refilling Yuuri's glass, "and because it looks like drinking tears," and then all of their phones buzz with yet another expletive-ridden message from Yurio, pissed off at being left out.

"I can't read this," Yuuri says, sighing. "Is it bad that I can't speak Russian yet? Everybody here has just been so nice that I haven't really needed to!"

"Sun at the center of my life," Victor says, sliding a little closer to Yuuri in the booth, which is to say: actually into his lap, "trust me when I tell you that you are better off not knowing what it says."

"Poor Yurio," Yuuri says. His arms are around Victor now, which means it is up to Victor to tip vodka into Yuuri's open mouth. Victor does, and he watches Yuuri's throat as he swallows. "Maybe we should have done this at home so he could have hung out us."

Mila smirks. "No, this is definitely better for him. If Yura got drunk around you, he'd probably do something he'd regret."

"Why?" Yuuri asks. His voice is wobbling. "Do you think he'd try to beat me up? I thought we were friends!" He looks like he's about to cry.

"Oh, no, sweetie," Mila says, reaching out to pat his hand. "You are friends! Really good friends! He likes you, I promise!"

"You really think so?"

Mila nods, and Yuuri smiles a watery smile. "Then what would he do that he'd regret?"

Georgi begins to recite a poem about unrequited love. A small mercy: it's in Russian.

Yuuri blinks expectantly at them all.

Yurio wouldn't want Yuuri to know, especially not like this.

Victor, drunk and stupid, falls back on the lie he's been using these past few weeks and yells, "I'm the hero of Russia! Let's drink to me!" and pours a shot down Yuuri's throat.

Mila and Georgi find this hilarious. They start making up ridiculous things for him to decree, and because Victor is, again, _stupid drunk,_ he repeats the ridiculous things.

This is how Yuuri ends up naked on top of a statue in the middle of St. Petersburg. Victor is, of course, up there with him, because they are _in love_ and that's what you do when you love someone: climb near or on top of statues with them, naked.

Then the police show up. 

Victor is certain they're about to get arrested for indecent exposure. He ran out of the Petersburg Police's goodwill sometime in his early twenties. It wasn't even his fault. At least, he's pretty sure it wasn't his fault. He'd been drunk then, too. In any case, the blame for that episode rests with Chris, or Georgi, or the both of them.

Now, Victor climbs down first, to see if he can at least save Yuuri from being thrown in a Russian jail.

"Beautiful performance piece," one of the police officers says, once Victor has finished buttoning his pants.

"Uh... yes," Victor says. "Thank you."

"Is this a one-night-only thing, or are you planning on showing it at one of the museums?" her partner asks. "Oh! Is he the creator? Your work is magnificent!"

Victor turns, and realizes Yuuri has walked up behind him. Still naked. "...Yes," Victor says. "He is. But I'm afraid he doesn't speak any Russian."

"Oh," the first officer says. "Well, please convey my admiration to him."

"I will," Victor says, and then, to Yuuri in Japanese, "We're not going to jail because I'm the hero of Russia."

*

And so it goes. Victor has made his bed of terrible egotistical lies, and now he has to... keep making it. For the rest of his life.

The night the Grand Prix assignments roll in, Victor and Yuuri are sitting together on the couch, Makkachin sprawled across their laps. Victor is petting the best dog in the world, and Yuuri is glaring at some puzzle game on his phone. Then Victor's alert goes off.

Yuuri's head lifts. "Grand Prix?"

"Yes," Victor says, scanning the list. "You're at Rostlecom with Yurio and me, and then NHK with Yurio. I've got Internationaux de France with Chris." It's Chris's last season too, Victor knows, and he's happy to have one last qualifying event with him.

Yuuri's phone buzzes, and whatever he sees on it makes him smile. He turns it so Victor can see that there's a message from Yurio: 

_I'll kick your ass at Rostlecom and NHK and the GPF_   
_You'll never win another gold medal again_   
_You'll be skating until you die_

"You told Yurio about our five-medal deal?" Yuuri asks.

Victor smiles. "Of course I did. I never want you to retire, and neither does he. It will be good motivation for him."

"Ha." Yuuri snorts. "Like Yurio needed any extra motivation."

Then Yuuri puts his phone down on the side table, folds his legs underneath himself on the couch, and turns his whole body so that he's facing Victor fully. "Victor," he says, "I want to thank you."

"Thank me? For what?"

"Victorrrr." Victor will never get tired of the way Yuuri says his name, especially in moments like these, when his voice is full of laughter. "Did you think I didn't know what you were doing?"

"What?" Victor gapes. "You _knew?_ If you knew, what was the point? Why did you let me keep doing it?"

"Just because I know it's a lie doesn't mean it doesn't help." Yuuri shrugs. "I have a gold medal from Worlds, but I still call myself a dime-a-dozen skater in my head. It helps."

Victor tilts his head. "Are we talking about the same thing?"

"My future husband, the hero of Russia?"

Victor nods and finally lets himself cringe the way he wanted to every time he called himself that.

"And you did it because of my mental weakness—"

"Oh, bunny, I wouldn't put it that way—"

"—to help me with my skating."

Victor says nothing. Thankfully, Yuuri keeps speaking.

"You know that I don't like... expectations. But going into this new season, I'm defending World Champion, and it's the _Olympics,_ and I didn't know— I didn't know how I was going to handle it. But then there you were, telling me how." Yuuri reaches out, takes Victor's hand, and kisses his ring. "I'm the fiance of Living Legend Viktor Nikiforov, Hero of Russia, and that means I get special treatment. Maybe people think the judges overscored me because of you. Maybe people don't think I deserved that gold medal after all. Now I get to prove them wrong with my skating."

Victor looks at him, his dazzling Yuuri, who shines his brightest when he feels like he has something to fight against. Victor, of all people, knows the weight of being the best in the world, and if Yuuri can breathe more freely if he has some way to tell himself he _isn't—_

"Oh, my Yuuri," Victor says. His smile feels like it's taking over his entire face. "I have something _amazing_ to tell you."


End file.
